END OF DROUGHT FUELS CONSUMER PRICES DROP
Thailand’s consumer price index declined 0.05 per cent year-on-year to 100.66 in June due mainly to drops in the prices of vegetables and fresh fruit.
Pimchanok Vonkorpon, director-general of the Trade Policy and Strategy Office (TPSO) at the Ministry of Commerce, said it was the second consecutive month that consumer prices had declined.
“Vegetable and fruit groups came as the main factors for inflation in June. Last year, their price bases were high, given droughts. But this year, there's no drought,” she said. Vegetable prices fell 9.71 per cent, while fresh fruit prices decreased 4.87 per cent.
However, in the first half of this year, the country’s consumer prices edged up 0.67 per cent.
In the latter half of this year, headline inflation is not expected to rise sharply after drops in the crude price.
TPSO has revised down its forecast for this year's headline inflation to 0.7-1.7 per cent from an earlier estimate of 1.5-2.2 per cent.
